As oil prices ratcheted up earlier this year, the Republican leadership lambasted President Obama for not preventing the resultant increase in gas prices at the pump. Now that gas prices are trending down, I haven’t heard Mitt Romney, House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Rush Limbaugh (not that I would listen to him) or others heap praise on the president for his stellar work on this issue.

We should have learned that a president can have no material effect on the price of gas in the short run. Obama has focused on long-term energy policies that seek to alleviate our reliance on carbon fuels. This should be a topic of debate in the election campaign, not the short-term fluctuations in the international market for petroleum.